Out of the Ice (36 page)

‘I’ll try to persuade them.’ Travis didn’t look hopeful. ‘And if they won’t, I’ll give David their names,’ he offered, and I loved that he’d be brave enough to take a stand in the world of men at Alliance.

I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I had to. ‘Travis, did you ever suspect Simon?’

Travis paled and sat back in his chair, his body seeming to shrink. He looked at me directly as I held my breath and waited for his answer. Kate watched, her brow creased with worry. ‘No,’ he said, ‘and that makes me feel terrible. That he was a friend, doing that under my nose, and I never had a clue. He was so clever, pretended he didn’t like Connaught. I never even saw them together socially.’

I exhaled and breathed more easily, relieved to hear Travis confirm his innocence.

‘I’ve been thinking about that Adélie,’ said Kate into the silence. ‘The one we found in the cupboard. It might actually have wandered in there and died of natural causes. I couldn’t find any evidence of viruses in the penguin colonies, so thankfully that’s at least one bit of good news.’

I’d been wrong about everything with that Adélie – but now happiness flashed through me to hear the penguins were virus-free. ‘That is truly great news,’ I said. Kate poured another whisky, and refilled our glasses. ‘To Georgia,’ she said suddenly. ‘She might have kept me from my Adélies, but she was a bloody good woman.’ I saw the glasses blurrily as we clinked them, and I sculled the liquor down, hot and fiery, which seemed fitting for Georgia. ‘Although we really should drink beer for her,’ I commented sadly.

Travis rose. ‘Let me.’ He went over to the bar.

I turned to Kate. ‘Remember that man we saw at Fredelighavn the night we stayed? I’m now
certain
that it was Snow. I still can’t quite believe that he’s behind all this. I wonder what Harvard found out about him?’

‘It must have been really bad, because we’ve seen how universities can close ranks around professors,’ said Kate forcefully.

She was right. Universities kept those matters confidential. We would never know. ‘My father will lose his position at Sydney University,’ I said and stopped as memories came flooding in. Dad’s dark eyes, so familiar, his smooth skin, the antiseptic smell around him. I had wondered if I’d unwittingly met up with him in the blubber cookery the first day I went to Fredelighavn – but I’d decided that man was shorter and fatter. Another scientist.

Kate squeezed my arm supportively. ‘You’re thinking about your dad, aren’t you?’

I nodded. ‘But I don’t want to. Not now.’
Not ever, if I could help it, but that was unlikely to be possible.

Travis came back with three beers.

‘To Georgia,’ we toasted again. As the cold beer slid down my throat, a shiver convulsed me. I could feel Travis watching. I glanced across, and as my gaze locked into his blue eyes that were full of concern, I realised the more time I spent with him, the more I thought of him in a very different way. A man who was loyal, who liked to say yes, and who grew more handsome every time I looked at him.

•  •  •

‘Hello, Helen?’

‘Laura! We’ve been so worried about you.’ Helen’s voice, clear and strong, came down the line. I pictured her standing at her kitchen table in Nantucket, and wasn’t sure how to break the news. I was sitting in the empty mess hall and could barely stay awake, but felt I had to speak to her.

‘We found the tunnels,’ I said. I could hear Helen breathing but she said nothing, waiting for me to continue.

‘There were steps, very steep, narrow steps, leading down from under the stage. In the dark, your brother wouldn’t have seen them.’

I didn’t know how to say that he probably broke his neck, without it coming out horribly.

I didn’t need to.

‘I understand,’ said Helen. ‘Thank you, Laura. It helps me very much to know that—’ She gasped.

‘Helen? Are you okay?’

‘My dear, yes. You wouldn’t read about it, but a cardinal has just flown right up to the sill. The brightest red I’ve ever seen. It was little Peter’s favourite bird.’

•  •  •

The next day, David Skyped me from Alliance. He had the strained, slightly wild eyes of someone who hadn’t slept. I sat in a small, dark computer room. No one else was around.

‘We’ve arrested your father and Snow, as well as Connaught, Simon, the teacher and four other scientists,’ he said and paused, shifting in his seat. ‘I’m sorry about your dad, Laura.’

‘It’s okay, I don’t really know him,’ I replied, feeling the truth of my comment.
He was like a complete stranger.
‘Any news from Venice?’ I asked dismally.

‘The Italian investigation’s going at full speed.’ David tensed up. ‘We suspect that Connaught and Simon arranged Georgia’s murder through mafia, and someone in the Venetian police force – most likely part of Connaught and Simon’s paedophile network – tipped them off that she was there.’ He stopped, looking like he might break down, then collected himself. ‘A detective is being interrogated as we speak,’ he continued angrily. ‘He could be the man who Georgia was planning to meet the night she disappeared. Someone she trusted, who’d been working the case with us. And this bloke’s senior enough to have made sure no police went to the docks the night the boys arrived.’

A vein throbbed in David’s neck, his face deepening red as he fought to keep his grief and rage under control. ‘Of course Connaught and Simon are swearing they had nothing to do with Georgia’s death. But they’ve given up the names of other paedophiles – including your mate Rutger Koch, whose visit down here wasn’t his first, and the artist-in-residence who’d painted the Hägglunds. They’re desperate to cut a deal.’ David smiled grimly. ‘Which they won’t get.’

So Rutger
did
know Connaught well. My stomach tightened into a thick knot as I flashed on what he might have done on his past trip – or trips – to Alliance. I braced myself as I asked the next question. ‘What about my father and Snow?’

‘They’re trying to persuade us they knew nothing about what Connaught and Simon were up to, and they’re adamant they were only doing safe experiments on the boys. And Stan, Simon’s co-pilot, is saying that he knew nothing either. He managed to fly with Simon on all the flights except the ones with the boys.’

People who chose not to see, I thought, my temples throbbing. Like people close to atrocities throughout history, who convinced themselves that doing nothing meant that they weren’t complicit. My father and the others had made choices. Choices, without conscience. Thinking that no one was watching, or would ever find out.
And that no one would ever judge them for their decisions.

‘Snow’s still trying to be a leader,’ David was saying as I tuned back in. ‘Refused to name the multinational pharmaceutical company that’s clearly involved in the drug trial. Won’t admit government involvement either, but he can’t substantiate how he could have funded the whole operation himself. Everything was financed through accounts in Snow’s name in the Cayman Islands. The boys were paid. Every fortnight, money was wired to their families.’

My father had been telling the truth about that after all. They were kids who had been sent out to make money, and they had succeeded, I noted miserably.

‘Their families didn’t know where they were. Snow kept that vague. He was pretending they were working somewhere in Europe.’

I listened tiredly, my limbs heavy, my blood feeling thick and slow, as David outlined how my father and Snow were facing prosecution for unlawful drug testing on humans, for which they had pleaded guilty, and charges relating to the trafficking of children, which they were fighting. They were also to go before an international court for having placed protected wildlife in grave danger with their experiments, letting children out among the penguins and seals. If the flu had spread to the penguins as avian flu, the whole ecosystem could have been at risk. They were claiming everything was carefully controlled, and the children never had active flu. As for their pragmatism in keeping Connaught and Simon compliant, by looking the other way to the sexual abuse of the boys, the law seemed not to have caught up to charging them with that. Yet. But laws were changing, and inquiries could be retrospective, so one day they might be brought to account for that too. It was distressing to think that the boys who had been hurt and dumped in Venice were unlikely ever to be found, or helped. In my mind, my father was as guilty for allowing the abuse to happen, as he was for everything else. I was disgusted, depressed and haunted to be his daughter.

•  •  •

‘I
won’t
go back there! I told you yesterday, and I’ll tell you tomorrow, I won’t!’ Santo’s pale face was flushed with fear and anger, his voice raised, as he spoke to Doctor Ramos.

My heart wrenched as I sat with them in a room that looked out across a field of ice to the sea, grey and choppy under thick clouds, matching the mood inside. Santo’s parents had been killed in the Guatemalan drug wars, and Santo had been sent across the border from Mexico to the United States by an uncle who had eagerly received the money wired to him by Snow’s Cayman Islands company. Santo was adamant he didn’t want to go back to the relative who had exploited him, and he had no other close family.

The ten boys who were found at Fredelighavn had now all been brought to Base Martinez for psychological and medical assessment. After two emotional days it had been established that five wanted to go back to their families in Guatemala, and the rest, like Santo, were begging not to return to their homes. Professor Fabio Natuzzi had graciously accepted my apology for doubting him, and was already working to settle boys in schools and families in Italy, but Santo didn’t want to go there either. And so I’d asked Professor Natuzzi for help, and was desperately waiting for his answer.

My phone rang and I trembled as I saw it was him. His voice came down the line, full of calm authority. ‘I’ve pulled a few strings, Laura,’ he said, ‘and I’ve managed to organise for Santo to be placed temporarily in your care.’

It took me a few moments to register what I’d just heard, and then I looked across to Santo, my body humming, a broad smile stretching across my face.

24

I
t was early afternoon in April when I finished the final draft of my report to the Antarctic Council. I had almost met the deadline, which would have pleased Georgia. I sighed deeply. Georgia appeared most nights in my sleep, usually her vivacious self, but on a few occasions her bloated body swam slowly through dark water towards me. The Italian police had arrested a man from Naples, linked to the mafia, who had given up the name of the detective in the Venetian police force. The detective then implicated Simon and Connaught. The trial would take place later this year, and David and I would be there, ensuring our dear friend, who we missed so deeply, at least received this justice.

I looked back at my report, thinking Georgia would have hated my recommendations.

In summary, taking all aspects into consideration, this remarkable wilderness has a chance of not only keeping its vast number of species, (refer appendix 1), but also increasing the population of each species.

The industrial architecture and streets of detached domestic dwellings at Fredelighavn Whaling Station are unique and would attract large numbers of tourists. However, given the importance of the wildlife, it is my strong opinion that this piece of Antarctica should remain an Exclusion Zone in perpetuity.

Regarding the buildings, due to their special nature, I suggest a photographic display of them be housed at Grytviken Museum on South Georgia Island; deposited in the archives of the Nantucket Historical Association in Massachusetts; and approaches made to Commander Chr. Christensen’s Whaling Museum in Sandefjord, Norway, situated in the Vestfold region where the Larvik Fishing Company was based, to include a set of photographs in their archives.

Ingerline Halvorsen was instrumental in creating a domestic summer village on an island south of the Antarctic convergence and for this, I believe, she deserves a place in Antarctic history alongside the explorers we already commemorate. An oral history could be sought from her granddaughter Helen Halvorsen, a Nantucketer who spent four summers at Fredelighavn, between 1950 and 1955. I would ask the Council to consider repatriating a gramophone player, records and family portraits back to Helen Halvorsen. The other contents of the houses could be placed with museums.

The buildings themselves could be left to decay with the weather and the years, or, if funds were supplied by participating treaty nations, all structures could be removed by a specialist company. I have spoken to several leaders in the field who estimate it would take five Austral summers to complete the dismantling. They would be happy to quote if the Council feels this is the appropriate path.

Given the difficulties of monitoring the activities of the nearby Alliance Base, and in light of recent violations of the Exclusion Zone at Placid Bay, I would recommend the base be relocated elsewhere in Antarctica and that South Safety Island, in its entirety, be closed to all human visitors.

I pressed send, dispatching it to my Australian superiors. My email pinged – it was Kate, who, writing up her Adélie research, was sending daily photographs of the penguins and their chicks, who had hatched, grown and headed out to sea. Today’s image was of penguins Isabel and Charles with their two fluffy chicks, standing happily between the tripod legs of the fixed camera. Smiling, I emailed Kate back, reminded that human presence didn’t have to hurt wildlife in Antarctica. As scientists we couldn’t leave everything alone, or we would miss learning important facts.

Was I then a hypocrite to want to close South Safety Island? Nancy on Nantucket swept into my mind; her justification of the whalers. I didn’t agree with her – but I knew that she was also right. The whalers, including Erling and Ingerline and their families, hadn’t thought what they were doing was wrong.